


wherever there is you (i will be there too)

by alasse



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Happy Ending for All (except transphobes), Heist-like shennanigans, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans!Margo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alasse/pseuds/alasse
Summary: Hogwarts AU. Mayakovsky confiscates a key ingredient in a potion that will change Margo’s life, and the gang organizes a heist to get it back. At the same time, Quentin attempts to ask Eliot to the Yule ball and maybe to hang out with him for forever, but everything from the heist to Eliot himself keeps getting in the way.
Relationships: Margo Hanson/Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh, William "Penny" Adiyodi/Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 39





	wherever there is you (i will be there too)

**Author's Note:**

> Heroically beta’ed by **everystarfall** , who as ever does brave battle against my run-on sentences. 
> 
> Written for **kiran** for notalonehere, with many apologies for how long this took - life got beyond crazy for more than a few months (it remains kind of crazy, but at least I can get a little bit of writing down now). After everything that’s come to light with JKR, it was more than a little difficult to play in the HP sandbox, but, hey - it’s ours now, and I wanted this story, among other things, to be a great big fuck you to her transphobic ass, because she and other terfs have really done enormous harm ([read this](https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/qa-understanding-the-high-court-hormone-blockers-judgment-with-director-of-legal-and-policy-lui-asquith/) about recent events affecting trans kids in the UK for just one part of it - the post also has links to many organizations along with Mermaids UK that could use help). Anyway, trans women are women, trans rights are human rights, and I really hope you enjoy this story, kiran!

“Okay, motherfuckers - stop whatever you’re doing, because we’re planning a heist.”

Quentin looked up from where he was half-heartedly attempting to correct his Charms homework and only succeeding in smudging the ink all over the parchment. He loved magic, down to his bones, but truly cursed the fact that the magical world hadn’t evolved alongside their Muggle counterparts to notebooks and normal pens. Margo was standing at the top of the table, completely ignoring Madam Schiff’s attempt to shush her, and she looked ready to commit murder, not just steal something. Quentin exchanged a swift glance with Eliot, who put down his wand, and they both gave Margo their full attention. 

“A heist, Bambi? I don’t know that we’re necessarily prepared to steal a dragon to do the proper smash and grab Gringotts would require,” Eliot pointed out. “Not that I’m opposed, of course.”

Margo rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, like I couldn’t do better than that with one hand tied behind my back. It’s not like dragon stealing is hard.”

“It’s. Not?” Quentin asked, swallowing hard when both Margo and Eliot turned to look at him.

Having their combined attention was always a little intimidating, despite the fact that he’d known them for six years at this point, and been properly friends with them for at least five of those - he usually skipped one, when counting, because his fourth year had been a kind of a wash, most of it spent in the Hospital Wing while Madam Lipson plied him with various mood-regulating potions until they found a mixture that didn’t have terrible side-effects. It turned out it was nearly impossible to get an Abilify prescription filled in a magical castle in the middle of nowhere since, surprise, wizards sucked at mental health even more than Muggles. 

“Oh, little Q, the stories I could tell you,” Margo said, looking at him with a strange fondness that was gone almost before he could register it. “But no time. The target is not in fact Gringotts, El, but Mayakovsky’s private cellar.”

“Oh, shit,” Quentin whispered.

“Oh shit is right,” Eliot said. “Gringotts would actually be easier, Margo - Mayakovsky has probably set up something even worse than the fucking Chamber of Secrets down there. Is there a particular reason you’d like us to get expelled a mere six months before we finally graduate from this place?”

Quentin winced at the reminder that Eliot and Margo would be leaving at the end of the year. It wasn’t like he’d be left entirely alone - Julia was in his year, obviously, and the six years at Hogwarts had given them the space to turn his ill-advised crush on her into the truest of friendships. There was Alice, too, at least now, after they’d gotten past the nuclear disaster of their short relationship. He also kind of had Kady and Penny, who still called him names but mostly for show, nowadays, after the whole incident with the Giant Squid in third year. 

Still, Eliot had been the very first person to reach out to him in the Hufflepuff common room, disarming Quentin’s surliness at being separated from Julia, who’d wound up in Ravenclaw - and his more quiet frustration at finding out that even while magic was real, Fillory was _still_ not - with some contraband hot chocolate, some dubious advice, and an honest offer of friendship. He’d introduced him to Margo, too, who had been even more intimidating (she seemed to embody all he’d heard about Slytherins on the train, the scary and the scarier) but who’d taken Quentin under her wing nevertheless. Hogwarts without them was kind of unthinkable.

“Listen, I don’t give a shit how dangerous it is. That motherfucker confiscated my birdwing chrysalis,” Margo said, hands going to her hips. “So we need to steal it back.”

“Your what now?” Eliot asked.

“The Queen Alexandra’s birdwing chrysalis that Ted Lupin managed to get for me? From the rarest, largest butterfly in the world? Come on, El, I told you about this last week at the Three Broomsticks!”

“I… may have had a little too much Firewhisky last week?”

“ _Eliot!_ ”

“It’s for the potion, right?” Quentin cut in, before Margo Kedavra’ed Eliot with the sheer power of her anger. “The permanent gender confirmation potion you’ve been putting together?”

“Exactly,” Margo replied, giving him a short, pleased nod which made Quentin feel way too validated. “At least one of you is paying attention at any given time. Anyway - this was the last ingredient I needed to do the potion, but Mayakovsky looked over my notes and decided it was too dangerous and unnecessary since I’m _doing just fine_ with estrogen and T-blockers, and confiscated the chrysalis before I could curse his transphobic ass to hell.”

Oh shit, this was bad. 

Quentin immediately shoved his Charms essay away, ink disposal forgotten, and any levity or insouciance in Eliot’s demeanor vanished as he sat up straight, fury in his eyes. “Did you tell Lipson? She’s been with you every step of the way, Bambi, surely she’s not okay with that.”

Margo sighed. “Yeah. She disagrees with him and she tried to get it back for me, but Mayakovsky pulled Potions Master rank on her, the asshole.”

“Would Headmaster Fogg help?” Quentin asked, even as something in him already knew the answer.

“Quentin. Baby. Remember how he was about _your_ medical needs?” Margo shot back.

Quentin grimaced, flashing back to the many uncomfortable times the Headmaster had tried to convince him wizards, witches, and magic-folk didn’t get depressed because they had magic. “Yeah, good point.” Well, there was really nothing to it. Quentin shoved his hair behind his ears and shook out his hands slightly. “Okay, um. So I guess we’re planning a heist?”

“We’re planning a heist,” Eliot confirmed with a small, determined grin.

Margo’s resultant smile was totally worth finally getting kicked out of the Library by Madam Schiff.

* * *

Quentin tried to go to sleep that night, but tossed and turned long enough that he woke up Anna Jones, who gently suggested he take some chamomile tea in the common room, quietly explaining where she kept her stash hidden. Abashed, Quentin tiptoed out of the 6th year dormitory clutching his wand and hoping his ingrained clumsiness wouldn’t have him crash into anything - most of his dorm-mates would probably be understanding, they’d slept in the same room with him for years now and knew Quentin often had nightmares and trouble sleeping, but if he woke Penny up he’d never hear the end of it.

Quentin managed to make it to the common room without creating any minor disasters, and he settled down in his favorite cushion close to the fireplace with a mug of Anna’s chamomile tea, softly whispering “ _Ferveat_ ” and swishing his wand to bring it to a boil. 

He wasn’t sure, exactly, what was keeping him up. He knew it was anxiety, a generalized, panicky anxiety that was keeping his heart racing and his eyes open, but he couldn’t quite pin down where it was coming from. He stared down into the golden liquid inside the mug, and heard Madam Lipson in his head, patiently telling him to picture his brain like all sorts of threads that were tangled together, threads of different color and weight and length. Some threads irreparably broken, some repaired through painstaking effort, new threads tied together from disparate ends - threads he could unspool and untangle if he took his time, if he had patience with himself instead of just berating himself for the strange mess his brain was. 

He pinpointed one, a deep purple thread leading straight to Margo, to the heist: he was frustrated for her, angry on her behalf, because she was so strong, because she’d never backed down for a second until she made sure her body felt like her own, never flinching at the cosmetic charms and the potions and the regular hormones she had to inject every week, and she’d finally found a way to make it permanent but Mayakovsky had taken it away from her. 

Quentin was also afraid: afraid that Mayakovsky was right and maybe the potion would go wrong, somehow, hurt Margo. Of course, he would never, ever say that to her, would never presume to impose even an inkling of his fear on her choices, because he would Crucio himself before he ever became part of the chorus of voices always trying to do that. He was also, frankly, terrified that breaking into Mayakovsky’s office would backfire on them hard, and expulsion was really the least of his worries: knowing Mayakovsky, permanent maiming and/or death weren’t exactly out of the question. Once he acknowledged those fears, though, Quentin knew his anger and determination on Margo’s behalf were stronger than anything else - he would do whatever she needed to get the chrysalis back. 

He took a sip of tea, and hunkered down a little further into the cushion. There was something else, something a little deeper, a little older. A thread that was a little blue, a little green - a luscious turquoise - with specks of golden yellow, leading straight to, well. Eliot. Quentin sighed. He shouldn’t have been surprised, honestly: thoughts of Eliot had been keeping him up ever since the Yule ball was announced three weeks ago. Maybe longer, even, maybe since Eliot and Mike’s spectacular break-up in the middle of the Welcome Feast, a knock-out, drag-out fight that had made a couple of the statues and at least five of the ghosts barrel into the Great Hall because they thought maybe Voldemort had inexplicably come back to life. 

Eliot had always been Quentin’s friend, was the thing: his friend, his welcome into Hufflepuff, the effortlessly cool guy who’d given the hopeless nerd the time of day and the world with it - while Julia fell into a torrid love affair with every book in Ravenclaw Tower (and into a very messy on-and-off with Kady and then Penny and then both) and left Quentin hanging around the Entrance Hall waiting for her more often than not. 

But Quentin hadn’t really thought there was more - not _really_ \- even though he obviously had eyes and was very, very, very bisexual. The thing was, Eliot had always felt way too cool for him, far too cool to fantasize about in any concrete way other than in the midst of some hazy dreams. And anyway, first there had been that crush on Julia to deal with and then the disaster that had been he and Alice. By the time Alice and Quentin had at last broken up (not quite as spectacularly as to make people think a Third Wizarding War was breaking out, but Quentin was definitely _persona non grata_ at Madam Puddifoot’s), and Alice had wound up with Margo - which made so much more sense than Quentin and Alice ever had - it was too late. Eliot had stopped with the once-every-Hogsmeade-outing flings and actually started a serious relationship with Mike Moore, who was doing an eighth year apprenticeship with Professor Sunderland. 

But now they were broken up, and the Yule Ball was coming up, and if Quentin could stop being a fucking disaster for one second and actually put a sentence together, he could ask Eliot to the Ball and maybe get a yes. Maybe get Eliot. Maybe.

“Coldwater!” Penny’s voice made Quentin jump, and he hissed as hot chamomile tea spilled over his fingers. “You’ll figure out how to ask Eliot to the Yule Ball tomorrow morning. Come back to the room and go the fuck to sleep.”

Goddamn it. Quentin really hated Penny’s telepathy.

* * *

The next day, any thoughts of stealing from Mayakovsky or asking Eliot to the Ball were put on hold because Professor Bigby was less than impressed at Quentin’s attempt to clean up his smudged ink from the essay he’d been working on, and had him stay on through lunch to re-write it in front of her. It wasn’t, she said, that she particularly cared about homework - apparently fairies thought that what you couldn’t learn through the teacher you’d hardly learn by writing essays, although Fogg demanded she ask for homework regardless - but that Quentin had not been imaginative enough. If he worked better with a ballpoint pen, then according to Bigby he should’ve just gone ahead and written it with a pen and charmed it into looking the proper way.

Which she knew full well he couldn’t do, not without turning the essay itself into total gibberish, because the ink-to-ink charm was terrible at preserving grammar, and no matter how many Sundays he’d spent in the library trying to hunt down a solution, he hadn’t been able to yet. But, well. As Eliot always said, fairies were assholes.

Seething slightly and shaking out his cramped hand, Quentin finally made his way out of the classroom, trying to calculate whether he had time to run down to the kitchens before Arithmancy. And nearly tripped over Julia, who was leaning right by the entrance.

“Hey, Q - got you a scone and an apple,” she said, offering both to him. 

“Jules, you are a life-saver. How did you know?” Quentin asked, half-muffled through the scone he was scarfing down which was still piping hot, because Julia was amazing at warming charms.

“Penny mentioned Bigby had given you a hard time over your essay, I figured she might make you stay behind and rewrite it,” Julia replied, shrugging, as if Penny expressing any concern for Quentin was the sort of thing he did all the time and not only on very specific circumstances (to wit: that one time when Quentin was almost killed by a rogue dementor possessing Tim Jordan and Penny got in the way; that other time where they all drank Todd’s ‘homemade’ Firewhisky and were already hallucinating by the time Todd mentioned that his dad usually laced it with Fizzing Whizbee venom; and that other _other_ time when they had Charms class with a substitute and Professor Purchas thought it would be fun to try an emotion mirroring spell while Quentin was barely coming out of a depressive episode).

“Well, um. Tell him thanks. Or - uh. Yeah, don’t tell him anything, actually, it’ll just make him angry.”

“You two are so weird about each other,” Julia said.

Hah, seriously? 

“Uh, Jules? The you from last year is calling, she wants her ‘weird about Penny Adiyodi’ award back.”

Quentin still felt a little traumatized over the hours and hours of sheer angst and over-analysis of their compatibility or lack thereof and whether Julia liked Kady or Penny best or whether maybe they liked _each other_ best before they finally managed to get together in a decent poly relationship.

“Yeah, yeah, smart guy,” Julia said, nudging him with her shoulder so that he stumbled slightly. “Anyway, besides making sure you ate, I actually needed to ask you something.” 

“What’s up?”

“What are you guys doing about the ingredients Mayakovsky took from Margo?” Julia asked, voice entirely serious now.

“You know about that?”

“Yeah, I, uh - I was outside Mayakovsky’s classroom ‘cause I needed to double-check something for the potions introductory course Alice and I are putting together for the muggle-born first years, and I overheard Madam Lipson arguing with him.” Julia paused, bit her lip. “It’s so unfair. Margo has been working on that potion for nearly two years.”

“I know,” Quentin said, feeling the wave of anger and concern rise to the surface again. “Margo is livid, obviously. And, well - I know you like Fogg, but he sucks about these things.”

“I know,” Julia replied immediately. “He’s been - he’s been really good to me, but after how he acted when you needed help, I just…” She sighed, and then shook her head. “Yeah, I get why he’s not really someone who’ll go against Mayakovsky here. Which is why I figured maybe you guys were planning something? You and Margo and Eliot, I mean.”

“Well -” Quentin bit at his apple, tugged his hair a little. Julia and Margo had a bit of a tense relationship so he wasn’t too sure Margo would be especially gung-ho about sharing and caring with her, but. Julia was the best of their year at magic - right alongside Alice - and truly better than plenty of 7th Years, and to get into the dungeon they really needed all the help they could get. “We’re, um. We’re going to plan a heist. Breaking into Mayakvosky’s dungeon and getting the chrysalis back.”

Julia was quiet for a moment, looking down at her wand as she mindlessly cast little sparks that turned into flowers and birds before drifting into smoke. When she looked up, Quentin felt a bit of deja vú - she looked determined and a little scary and a lot powerful, exactly how she’d looked when they were six years old and she’d pushed Billy Jones into a puddle because he’d stolen Quentin’s Buzz Lightyear. 

“I’m in, Q. Tell Margo I’ll help however she needs.”

“Okay,” Quentin replied softly.

“And, um - tell her Kady and Penny are in, too.”

“You sure?” Quentin asked.

Julia smiled, that twisted mischievous smile Quentin knew like the back of his hand. “Yeah, totally. Kady’s basically a Gryffindor brochure underneath all that eyeliner, and Penny has a major soft spot for Margo. They’re in, trust me.”

“Okay,” Quentin smiled back, feeling like maybe - maybe - they’d all be able to get through this thing unscathed. “Thanks, Jules. I’ll talk to Margo, let you know what she says.”

“Coldwater, Wicker - are you two planning on joining us any time soon?” Professor Van der Weghe asked, startling Quentin into dropping the rest of his apple.

“Uh, sure, Professor - sorry,” Julia muttered, and darted into the classroom, Quentin following behind.

Quentin - who usually really enjoyed Arithmancy, it tended to make more sense to him than Charms or Transfiguration - was mostly distracted for the entire lesson, thinking of all the various ways Julia, Kady, and Penny could help them in the heist, but mostly feeling very grateful that Julia Wicker was his best friend.

* * *

They met that weekend at The Hog’s Head because among the many results of the Second Wizarding War, one of the smaller but more fortunate ones had been the installation of completely private rooms that could be rented for a reasonable amount of galleons by Aberforth. Rumor had it that then-Headmaster McGonagall hadn’t loved the idea of it too much - worried about a new version of Death Eaters having a perfect spot to plan, apparently - but then Bill Weasly had placed an ancient Egyptian curse over the three private rooms that made it impossible to plan true harm (or plan any spell that involved goats, for some reason) and so the Headmaster acquiesced. 

Quentin shivered slightly as he stepped inside the darkly panelled room, hoping the curse would feel their heist was more righteous than harmful - the ancient Egyptians would have probably thought Maykovsky impeding Margo’s bodily autonomy was shitty, right?

“Isis and Osiris really frowned upon people fucking with other people’s bodies - I don’t think the curse will be triggered, Quentin.”

Quentin turned, startled, to find Alice behind him. She had her eyebrows raised and was pointedly waiting for Quentin to cross the threshold into the room, looking mildly exasperated with him as had been the norm for as long as they’d known each other, even throughout their short and disastrous relationship. 

But there was also that glimmer of acknowledgement, that little _hey, I know you, I can see what you’re thinking_ because they really had been a romantic disaster but that didn’t mean they hadn’t found a connection as a couple of awkward nerds who were kind of shitty at keeping their inside thoughts inside and could talk about the theoretical hegemonic implications of having so many Latin-based incantations in magic. It’s just that they sucked at doing that and also kissing, so. Very much better off as friends. 

“Right, um. That’s what I was thinking, yeah,” Quentin finally replied, shuffling inside and hesitating for a second before settling on the violently orange settee near the fireplace - the color was horrible, but it looked very comfortable. “Did Margo arrive with you?”

“No, she told me she needed to take a detour with Eliot - apparently they hid something that could come in useful in the Room of Requirement a long time ago?”

Quentin grimaced slightly. “We should open a window,” he suggested. 

The Room mostly still worked - only for very skilled Magicians, though, which meant Quentin kept far away from it because with his luck he’d just as likely get stuck inside or get banished to Siberia - but whenever people went in they came out reeking of smoke. Fiendfyre left pretty strong after-effects, even years after. 

Alice looked confused for a moment, but then made the same connection he had. “We should. I’ve been perfecting an air freshening spell, too, just in case it’s bad.” At Quentin’s look, she elaborated. “It can get a little stuffy in the Slytherin dungeons, and I’m not used to them like Margo is.”

Ah, right. Because she was spending time in Margo’s room. Before Quentin could come up to a follow-up to that in no way implied he was thinking about the fact that his ex and one of his best friends were having sex, he was rescued by the rather loud and smoky entrance of Eliot and Margo, followed closely behind by Julia, Penny, and Kady.

As they all tumbled into the room, Eliot glanced between Quentin and Alice for a split-second, and something flashed in his eyes too fast for Quentin to identify. “Hello, miscreants! We have arrived - time to plan some mischief,” Eliot exclaimed, before Quentin could say anything, brandishing a bottle of Firewhisky with one hand and waving his wand in front of him to make at least a dozen Butterbeer bottles float onto the table. 

“Eliot, the curse!” Julia hissed.

“Ah, right. Um - some very righteous mischief,” Eliot corrected loudly, looking at the ceiling. “Very righteous indeed!”

Kady rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that totally solves it, genius.”

“Scared of a little curse?” Eliot said with mock-concern, taking a swig from the Firewhisky at the same time as he carelessly swished his wand and got a Butterbeer to float toward Penny and Quentin, and, honestly, it could be infuriating how ridiculously talented he was even when half-sloshed and barely paying attention.

“Uh, an ancient Egyptian curse that _Bill Weasley_ almost got killed taming down a couple of years ago when those idiots had a Make Voldemort Great Again meeting?” Kady shot back, heated. “Yes, I’m scared, Eliot! And so should you be!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a Gryffindor, Ms. Orloff-Diaz? Isn’t it all about the danger?”

“Listen, Waugh - just because you’ve had a bit of a death wish after that shit-show with McCormick went down doesn’t mean you get to take us down with the rest of you.”

Quentin could see the moment Eliot’s slightly drunk snarkiness turned into seething, trembling anger, sparks flaring from his wand as he squared up to Kady who already had her own wand out, and he knew he had to do something.

“Enough!”

Eliot and Kady froze, both turning to look at him.

Quentin cleared his throat - he really wasn’t used to yelling - and shuffled slightly on his feet, unsure of the exact moment when he’d stood up. 

“I don’t give a shit if you two don’t like each other, or don’t like someone else here, or me, but you _are_ going to put your fucking wands away and sit the fuck down and stop picking stupid fights. And if you can’t contribute something useful, like a way to break into Mayakovsky’s fucking dungeon without all of us dying a crispy, horrible death, then get the fuck out,” he said, words rushing so quickly past his lips he almost lost his breath. He paused, swallowing hard and trying to ignore the part of his brain that was yelling at him over the sheer lack of self-preservation in getting between two people with infinitely stronger magic skills than him. “But if you’re staying, remember that we’re here to help Margo, not to air out petty grudges. So, sit down and shut up until you can contribute something useful.”

The silence after felt like a bomb, and for a moment Quentin thought he’d pushed too hard - this had never really been him, the one directing people, because six years learning magic in the weirdest castle ever had taught him that, as much as he would’ve wanted to think otherwise, he was better at being the side-kick than the main character. But this once, maybe, he’d done it right, because Eliot and Kady were nodding apologetically and sitting down, and Margo was looking at him with a sideways, proud smile, and Quentin hadn’t thrown up out of a sheer anxiety overload, so. Little victories.

“Baby Q - who knew you had it in you, you little feisty thing?” Margo said, settling into the orange settee next to him.

“Are you kidding? I did,” Penny replied, rolling his eyes. “Dude’s so wound up he would fight air some days, if it stood still long enough. You think he got punched by Tim Jordan ‘cause he’s such a chill guy?”

“Shut up, Penny,” Quentin muttered. “I didn’t realize he was being possessed by a Dementor, okay, we’ve been over this. He was just being such a _dick_.” 

He kept hogging Quentin’s favorite reading chair by the fire in the Hufflepuff common room, okay? And leaving it full of crumbs, and he smelled super weird, and, just. Like, it was _known_ it was Quentin’s spot - well, Quentin and Eliot’s - and he just kept sitting there, and how was Quentin supposed to know it was because some part of Tim Jordan was trying to, like, over-heat the Dementor into leaving?

“Yeah, yeah, excuses,” Penny said. “Anyway, much as it pains me to say it, Coldwater’s right. Breaking into Mayakovsy’s is going to be complicated as shit, and before you ask - there’s definitely anti-Travelling wards in that dungeon, I’ve always been able to sense them.”

“Is that why you always get a headache in Potions class?” Quentin asked. 

“You noticed that?” Penny shot back, looking surprised and a little touched, and also pissed off over feeling touched, all at once. Classic Adiyodi.

Julia rolled her eyes and cut in. “Hate to interrupt you two being weirdly invested in each other as always, but just to specify: the wards wouldn’t actually stop you from travelling, Penny. They’d just get you stuck in there if you touch them.”

“Oh, and that’s so much better, thank you, Julia,” Penny said, voice dry as the desert.

“No, wait, we can work with that - it’s just a matter of figuring out a form of levitation or something of the sort,” Margo cut in. “How do you even know this, Wicker?”

“I kind of tricked Fogg into talking about the modifications Mayakovsky made to the castle wards in his dungeon yesterday, when we were in our Advanced Arithmancy seminar,” Julia shrugged. “He admitted that even _he_ didn’t know the extent of all the charms and curses put in, but he gave me plenty to go on, at least.”

Alice, who had been weirdly quiet up to that point, waved her wand at the wall and projected the piece of paper in front of her - Quentin realized she hadn’t just been quiet, she’d been taking notes next to a fairly accurate map of Mayakovsky’s dungeon. 

“Okay, so - that’s what I’ve been able to identify, just from shooting off some undetectable _Revelios_ when he’s not paying attention during class,” Alice explained, when they all stared at the wall in surprise. “Julia, did Fogg mention some things that I haven’t identified?”

“Yeah, lemme just-” Julia took Alice’s quill and started scribbling on the map. “I think… yeah, so he modified the ward in this corner like this, and he added some curses over here…”

Margo and Kady stood up to examine the map projected on the wall, talking quietly after each curse and charm appeared. Penny, standing behind them, looked more and more alarmed by the minute, which really did little to ease Quentin’s fear that they were in over their heads.

“Did you know Alice could do undetectable _Revelios_?” 

Quentin jumped slightly at Eliot’s whisper - he hadn’t even noticed that Eliot had taken Margo’s place next to him. 

“Um, not really, but. She could do wandless spells around fourth year, though, so I’m not surprised,” Quentin replied, trying hard not to obviously sway toward Eliot’s warmth and his familiar, spicy-woodsy scent. 

“You really admire her,” Eliot said, with an odd, stark tone, which. What?

Quentin glanced over at him, eyebrows scrunched. “Uh. I. I guess? I mean, I’ve always known she’s an amazing wit- magic user,” he said, quickly correcting himself. He’d been seriously practicing using more gender-neutral terms, because Margo and Penny had made some very important points about how exclusionary the terms witch and wizard could be, but he sometimes still slipped. “But, y’know. So are Julia, Margo, and Kady and Penny, and, well. Obviously you. I’m kind of the chump, here,” he shrugged, with a small smile.

“No, you’re not, Q,” Eliot said, at once earnest and sly. “You know you’re really important to all of us, and, like your magic is just your own style, okay? It’s small but it’s totally solid - why do you think I get you to do the _Reparos_ for all my shirts?”

Quentin snorted out a laugh. “Well, I guess there is that. If all else fails I can set up a clothes repair business when I graduate or something.”

“I’d be your top customer.” Eliot grinned back, eyes shining. 

They stared at each other for a moment, and Quentin thought - maybe? Maybe this would be a good time to ask if Eliot had anything planned for Yule, if...

“Hey, you two! Lovebirds! Want to join in and help, here?” Margo’s voice rang across the room, startling Quentin into spilling his Butterbeer all over the couch.

“We’re coming, Bambi!” Eliot yelled back, rolling his eyes, as Quentin muttered a spell to clean up. “Come on, Q - time to put all your Muggle time playing Darkness and Death as a geeky kid to good use.”

“It’s Dungeons and Dragons, El,” Quentin corrected, as he always did.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Eliot placated him, putting a large, warm hand on the nape of his neck. He then steered Quentin toward a worryingly blood-thirsty looking Alice explaining something to Julia, who seemed to be writing it down instead of acting as any kind of moderating force. 

As they joined the fray, adding ideas and attempting to subtract insanities, Quentin could have sworn he felt Eliot’s warm hand on his neck like a brand for the rest of the day, and he cursed his own tongue-tiedness at not being able to get a simple sentence out. He also wondered why exactly Eliot had become so fixated on Quentin admiring Alice - he couldn’t think Quentin was still pining after her, right?

“Q - do you think if we triple-cast the spell will hold?” Julia asked, cutting into Quentin’s inner drama.

Quentin ran a hand through his hair and leaned down to look at the spell Julia was modifying. “Uh. Yeah, Jules - I think if we add a third flick and switch at the end.”

Julia glanced down at her diagram, brow furrowed, but then nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

By the end of the day, they had a plan - which was more or less likely to get them killed, or worse, caught by Mayakovsky - and Quentin hadn’t managed another conversation alone with Eliot. But, well. Maybe it could wait until after they survived the dungeon.

* * *

Over the next three days, Quentin existed in a sort of haze - he kept going over the plan in his head during class, and out loud with various configurations of Margo, Margo and Eliot, Eliot and Penny, Penny and Kady, Julia and Alice, and at night before going to bed, which made for more than a few bizarre dreams and kept him so strangely focused and distracted all at once that it resulted in the one Charms essay he’d ever written with a quill without any spills whatsoever. Professor Bigby had asked him to stay behind out of habit and then stared down at his essay in shock for around five minutes before dismissing him.

The whole quest thing had also mostly insulated Quentin from the general pre-Yule Ball panic taking over the rest of the school - there had been around twenty break-ups and fifteen new hook-ups, and a couple of Ravenclaws had apparently garnered themselves a suspension from the Ball because they’d been caught getting WWW love potions through the wards (Quentin privately thought Headmaster Fogg should just give up; it was obvious the wards held a very specific fondness for the Weasleys, because it was the only thing that explained how only _their_ stuff kept getting through) - but he couldn’t be _entirely_ unaware of the fact that Eliot had gotten about five invitations already, at least two in Quentin’s earshot. Eliot had turned them all down so far, but Quentin wasn’t quite sure if it was because he already _had_ a date and wasn’t saying, or if he just wasn’t planning on going, or if he was maybe waiting for someone else to ask.

“Quentin. Man. Seriously. Just ask him already,” Penny muttered from the depths of his bed. “Please, just ask him, so I can stop having dreams about you and Eliot dancing in Mayakovsky’s dungeon. And put on your fucking hat.”

“Sorry, Penny,” Quentin muttered back, tugging on the woolen sleep hat Julia had charmed for him - it helped him shield when he was asleep, so he wouldn’t broadcast all over Penny. It was a little itchy and tended to make him too hot, but it was better than Penny meddling in his subconscious. 

The thing was, every time Quentin even attempted to broach the subject of Yule generally with Eliot, let alone ask him, they were interrupted - either by an increasingly more manic Margo, which Quentin could hardly begrudge, or by Alice who continued to share more and more dire hypotheticals, or by general school madness. 

This was compounded by the fact that Eliot was kind of avoiding Quentin - not so much as to be noticeable, they still all ate together and obviously they were hammering out the details of the heist with everyone else - but where before they would usually spend some quiet time by the fireplace at least two or three times a week, Eliot would now bow out with some excuse (tired and going to bed early, some sort of crisis with Margo, and once, memorably, _hair conditioning_ , as if Quentin didn’t know full well Eliot had created his own version of Sleekeazy’s in his first year which meant he didn’t actually need to spend more than two minutes in the morning on his admittedly great looking hair). 

He’d also taken to looking at Quentin with a weird tragic glance whenever Margo and Alice did anything kind of couple-y, which was right-down bizarre - it wasn’t that Quentin had been totally copacetic back when they’d gotten together, because he’d still been nursing some hurt over how fucking _shitty_ his own breakup with Alice had been, but after a couple of sleepless nights which had been interrupted by a brutally honest Penny, he’d gotten through it (“The two of you didn’t fucking work, Coldwater. You were a romantic disaster, and you know it. Just - get over the fact that you want to have sex with her, and be her friend. It’s what you both need.”). Eliot had fallen in love with Mike right after that epiphany, though, so maybe he’d missed it? It still didn’t quite explain why he was being so weird right now.

Before Quentin could find the space and time to drag Eliot to their spot in front of the fire and straighten the whole thing out, though, it was time to break into Mayakovsky’s dungeon, and the Ball and Eliot’s weirdness and Quentin’s yearning all had to take a back-seat to actually surviving.

* * *

The plan had three stages: the first was was already done, and it was really the only part of the whole thing for which Quentin had been particularly useful - they’d had to create a reasonable facsimile of the birdwing chrysalis to substitute the real one with, so Mayakovsky would never know they’d taken it. Margo was inclined to leave behind an actual flaming piece of shit with smoke that read _fuck you_ , but was eventually persuaded to let them leave a proper replica. All of them were good at transfiguration, but Quentin was best at the small, infinitesimal details which would let them get away with it: a specific glimmer of lighter blue here, a particular texture there. 

The second part of the plan began in the morning. Toward the end of the joint Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff sixth year Potions lesson, Alice and Quentin released around a hundred Billywigs they’d stored in special cages in their satchels with an undetectable extension charm, and the resulting multiple stings, and many multiple flying and whizzing students created enough chaos that Deputy Headmistress Sunderland herself showed up and decreed that they would have to bring in a special decontamination crew. 

“I’ll need you to take down the enchantments in the evening, Mischa, so they can be here first thing in the morning.”

“No - I’ll handle the decontamination myself, I’m the Potions Master, for Merlin’s sake!”

Professor Sunderland rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I know you’re the Potions Master, but what you are _not_ is a certified class XXX magical beast remover, and I won’t have you killing the whole lot of them and then have to deal with a complaint by the Magical Beast Defense Board. So. Remove by the enchantments by close of business today.”

Quentin caught Alice’s eye and grinned. Phase two complete. 

By common agreement, they all went down to the Great Hall for dinner and sat loosely together - not close enough to be suspicious, but within decent wand-reach of each other, just in case anything could happen before they made their way to the dungeon. At this point, Quentin felt paranoid enough that he felt anything and everything might happen and ruin the plan - a Third Wizarding War, the Giant Squid crashing the Great Hall, sudden onset narcolepsy… 

Before his brain could keep catastrophizing even more dire scenarios, a flying paper plane crashed into his forehead, and Quentin fumbled to catch it before it tumbled into his mashed potatoes.  
_Q - if you keep looking so worried, you will actually make people think we’re up to something. Relax and have some treacle tart, I paid one of the elves to make sure they had it tonight. - E_

Quentin glanced up to where Eliot and Margo were sitting together and couldn’t help but smile - Eliot and Margo hardly ever used their House Elf connections. They’d actually set up a contract with a couple of House Elves to bring them dinner to a cottage in the grounds they’d charmed into moving around, but the negotiation with the Hogwarts House Elf Union had been very tricky. Eliot winked back at Quentin, and went back to talking to Margo, while Quentin tried to pay attention to the discussion Julia and Alice were having about post-Arithmantic theorems. 

By the time dessert came around - including very abundant helpings of treacle tart - Quentin felt relaxed enough that he let himself get roped into an argument about whether there could be wizards in space.

“ - no, no, listen Julia - there’s no way that transporters wouldn’t get fucked with if you used a spell during the disintegration process!”

“I don’t think so, Q, I think they’re actually compatible, because if you look at the principles behind them -”

“Hey, super-nerds. Not that this doesn’t sound riveting, but it’s time to get back to our rooms, get ready,” Penny interrupted them. “Kady slipped the potion into the vareniki, should hit him in about thirty minutes.”

Mayakovsky was notoriously careful about whatever he drank and ate, but everyone knew he over-indulged whenever cherry vareniki were on the menu, and it usually led to him complaining loudly about having dealt with an upset stomach the day after - the potion they prepared would amplify the effects enough that he’d be too busy running to the bathroom to monitor his dungeon too closely, or so they hoped. 

Nervous again, Quentin gave one last look at the remaining bite of his treacle tart and stood up to follow Penny back to the Hufflepuff dormitory. It was showtime.

* * *

Close to midnight, the seven of them crept toward Mayakovsky’s dungeon, Quentin still shivering slightly over the effect of the Disillusionment charm Alice had put on all of them, which was - of course - unusually strong. When they were a corner away from the entrance, they split up according to the plan: Julia and Margo stayed at the corners to guard the entrance, armed with a pocket wrecking ball that could cause all sorts of mayhem on the other side of the castle if they needed it too, although Quentin wasn’t sure exactly how (“Oh, Q, don’t ask - let’s just say that the Weasley’s are lucky I have no interest in opening a joke shop,” Eliot had told him). Alice, Quentin, Kady, and Eliot moved toward the entrance and released a temporary stasis spell cooked up by Julia which would freeze all the Billywigs until they left, and swiftly but carefully moved around the room to double-check that Mayakovsky’s outer enchantments were down.

They approached the rare ingredients room, which was warded so strongly it practically radiated magic - Mayakovsky had, as expected, only taken down the strictly necessary wards in the classroom but nothing else. Alice, Julia, and Eliot had come up with a way to trick the wards - a relatively simple freezing spell but modified so that it affected magic instead of people. The trick was that four people needed to cast it, exactly at the same time, without a single mistake. 

Quentin took a deep breath, clutched his wand, and waited as Alice quietly counted them down.

“Three… two… one… go.”

They all started swishing and flicking unanimously, one, two, three times until the spell built up and up, and then, “ _Rigescunt magicae_.”

The wards seemed to shudder for a moment, nearly coalescing into view - a frosty web of intricate words and even numbers - and then it quieted.

Alice shot a silent diagnostic spell at the door, and nodded after a moment. “Okay, we’re good to go - Q, call Penny in.”

Taking advantage - for once - of the fact that Quentin was utterly incapable of blocking Penny’s telepathy, they’d all agreed he’d call out for him on purpose for once, and Penny zapped into the room after a second.

“Jeez, I heard you Coldwater, I always hear you - no need to be so loud.”

“Listen, Penny, you know I can’t really control -”

“Hey, assholes - not the time,” Kady scolded them. “Now, Penny, get over here and let me stick you.”

Penny rolled his eyes but shuffled close to Kady, and she stuck him a syringe filled with a serum Eliot had developed - longer-acting Billywig venom, which would keep him floating for at least fifteen minutes, enough to have him go into the rare ingredients room, take the chrysalis and replace it with the replica without touching the anti-travelling wards.

“You remember what it looks like, right?”

“Yes, Kady, I _have_ seen the replica a million times, you know?”

Kady gave an unconvincing smile. “I know. It’s just…”

“Hey,” Penny said, leaning down a little to look into Kady’s eyes. “We’ll get it, okay? Don’t get soft on me now.”

Kady huffed out a laugh and seemed to shake out the fear, giving Penny her usual, sharp smile. “I’m never soft, you shit.”

Penny grinned, then quickly met Quentin’s eyes - Quentin would be the one who would have to let him know if anything was going wrong. “Alright - see you on the flipside.” 

The minutes after Penny travelled into the room seemed to crawl by, and Quentin clutched at the little pebble in his pocket Julia had charmed to let them know if anybody was approaching, convinced it was getting warm before realizing it was just that he was sweating and warming it up himself. 

After five minutes, though, his own concern was reflected in everyone else’s face.

“He should’ve been out by now,” Kady muttered.

“Maybe the anti-travelling wards activated when you touched something, too?” Eliot speculated. “We got nearly ninety percent of the dungeon mapped, but…”

“It could be a spell that works on intentions, which is why it wouldn’t have shown up with the _revelio_ , but it’ll be almost impossible to counter if it is,” Alice said. 

They had to know. And Quentin only knew one way.

“Eliot, stun me.”

“What?” Eliot exclaimed. “Q, now is really not the time - like, listen, I respect all kinks, but…”

“No - Penny can astral project into people’s heads when they’re unconscious, remember? And he always finds my brain. So, just - stun me, and bring me back in a minute.”

Eliot still looked dubious, but after a quick glance at Alice, who nodded, he prepared his wand. 

“Alright, Q. Sorry in advance.” He cleared his throat. “Stupefy!”

One second Quentin was awake, and the next he was in a weird composite of the Hufflepuff common room and the living room at his dad’s house. He looked around to see if maybe Penny was around already, but saw nobody.

“C’me on, Penny. Get in here....” After a second, Quentin shrugged, and brought out the big guns. “I stay out too late… got nothing on my brain… that’s what people say, hmm, that’s what people say, hmm-”

“Aw, c’me on, Quentin, you know I hate that fucking song.”

Quentin turned, and saw Penny sitting in the bizarre mixture of his old couch and the common-room love-seat.

“It’s a modern classic and you should be ashamed, Penny,” he shot back, not able to hide his relief. “Now - what happened, how do we get you out?”

“The serum started wearing off, and I grazed the floor.”

“What? How? We tested it a million times!”

Penny shrugged. “Best I can figure, we tested it in the mornings, and didn’t really take into account the slight changes in weight after I had a full dinner. Dumb mistake, but…”

Quentin groaned. “Ugh. I’m never going to bitch about potion theory ever again. Okay, okay - so, if it wasn’t an additional trigger, we just need to figure out a way to open the door without messing with the frozen wards.”

“Yeah, and, um. Hurry. The wards also triggered a de-oxygenation spell.

“Fuck. We’ll deal with it, Penny. Don’t worry.”

Penny opened his mouth to reply, but Quentin woke up before he heard to see Eliot, Kady, and Alice hovering over him on the floor - Eliot’s hand was cushioning the back of head, and Quentin guessed he’d caught him before he fell because he didn’t feel hurt at all.

“Q - did it work, did you see him?” Kady asked.

“Yeah, yeah - he’s okay, mostly. He’s going to run out of air in about eight minutes, though,” Quentin said. “It was the serum, it wore off a bit and he grazed the floor.”

“The serum?” Eliot asked, frowning, helping Quentin up. “But we -”

“I know,” Quentin interrupted. “We forgot to calculate for two helpings of treacle tart, I guess.”

“Fucking potion theory,” Eliot said. 

“Alright, so - if it was just the trigger we already knew existed, we just need to figure out a way to open the door, right?” Kady asked.

“We already know how to open the door,” Alice replied, biting her lip. “It’s just - the door will trigger something, and we don’t know what. Julia and I tried to figure it out for days, we just know it’s. Bad. Which is why we decided it would be best to bypass the door altogether.”

“We can’t leave Penny in there, Alice - however bad it is, Penny choking to death in there is worse,” Kady said. 

“Yeah, I know,” Alice replied, nodding quickly. “Just. Well, be ready.”

Eliot moved closer to Quentin, wand at the ready, and Kady flanked them, eyes looking around the room carefully.

Alice squared herself in front of the door and, after a deep breath, moved her wand clearly and decisively left, down, left again, and right. Then paused. Moved it upward, and said, “ _Alohomora maxima_.”

The door creaked open, and Penny stepped through quickly, the clear box with the Birdwing chrysalis in his hand before it shut behind him again. They all paused, wary, but nothing seemed to be coming. 

“Alice, are you sure…”

And then they heard it, a sort of _whoosh_ of magic that sounded like water, coming down from the ceiling and straight at them. 

“Penny, get out, take who you can,” Eliot yelled.

Penny grabbed Kady and Alice and travelled them out as Quentin felt the magic coming down painfully, like electric sparks. Before he could do anything, though, he was shoved forcefully out of the way, and then stared, horrified, as the magic trapped Eliot and seemed to electrocute him, freezing him in place.

A modified Thief’s Downfall. 

“Eliot, no!” Quentin scrambled to stand up, and clutched his wand, trying to think of something, _anything_ that could reverse it. They really could have used a dragon, after all. 

“Q, just go,” Eliot whispered, trembling as the magic zapped him again. “Go - Mayakovsky’s coming, diarrhea or not. I’ll just. I’ll make something up, but go.”

“No, El, I can’t leave you here,” Quentin said, reaching out to touch him, thinking desperately maybe he could just drag him out of the trap. “I won’t.”

Eliot looked at him for a second which felt endless, those hazel-green eyes warm and sad and kind, and smiled slightly. “You will.” He then seemed to look at something behind Quentin, and said. “Take him, now.”

And before Quentin could do anything else, he felt Penny grab him from behind, and travel him away.

* * *

“Did you hear? Waugh got caught in Mayakovsky’s dungeon last night, totally drunk.”

“What?! Is he still alive?”

“Yeah, barely, I guess. Apparently he was convinced Mayakovsky was hiding really rare vodka in the rare ingredients room and decided he would break in and get it.”

“That guy is seriously crazy. Although, Mayakovsky probably _does_ have really rare vodka in there, I’m kind of tempted myself.”

Quentin kept his head down over breakfast, although the conversation the two Ravenclaws were having next to him was making him nearly vibrate out of his skin. He hadn’t been exactly sure, last night - early this morning, whatever - if Eliot’s plan had worked. He’d been so angry with Penny for grabbing him, desperate to go back to the dungeon right there and then, to take Eliot’s place, to take the fall with him. It had been Margo who stopped him, face pale and hard. “Eliot made a choice, Q, and we’re going to respect it. He’s smarter than all of us put together, when it comes to getting out of shit like this, and we’re not going to ruin whatever plan he’s hatched by running in there half-cocked. So. Calm down, go the fuck to sleep, and we’ll regroup in the morning.”

A piece of paper fluttered next to his toast, and he grabbed it before it could fly away. _Meeting at the cottage in fifteen minutes. Follow the rabbit_.

Quentin choked down the last of his toast and tea, and after ten minutes of dallying in the table, trying to catch any other conversations that even hinted at Eliot’s name, he made his way out to the grounds, where he waited for a few seconds until a white rabbit darted into his path and took off towards the rare pumpkin and squash patch. Quentin followed him, almost running, and nearly crashed into the cottage when it suddenly became visible in front of him - he kept forgetting the charms activated when people allowed inside were already practically on top of it, half a protection measure and half a practical joke, all classic Eliot.

He opened the creaky door and stepped inside to find Margo and Alice, a cauldron in front of them bubbling bright green, then flashing yellow, then black.

“Is that -”

“Yeah,” Margo replied. “Mayakovsky and Sunderland still have him - probably working out exactly what they’ll have him do for detention the rest of the year - but he sent me a message through our mirror.” Margo and Eliot had heard the story of Sirius Black’s mirror and the part it had played in the Second Wizarding War and had come up with an upgrade in their third year - it was basically a smartphone, with texting, recording, and calling functions, and Quentin was sure if they ever decided to mass-produce them they’d become the wizarding version of Apple, but they were mostly uninterested.

“What was the message?”

“ _Finish the potion right away, and don’t do anything stupid to get me out of this. Don’t let Q do anything stupid, either._ ”

Quentin nodded, shifting slightly on his feet. “Do you. Do you think he’ll get expelled?”

“Mayakovsky probably wants to, but Sunderland and Fogg won’t let him,” Margo replied, shrugging. “They’ve actually been trying to find some way to squeeze more out of him, both in Potions and Charms, and I guess this is the perfect excuse.”

“What do you mean, squeeze more out of him?”

Margo smiled, a small, fond smile she only ever wore for Eliot. “You know he’s brilliant, Quentin. He doesn’t go around flaunting it - he’s not Wicker, or my dearly beloved over here -” she said, tilting her head toward Alice, who rolled her eyes, “-but he’s right at the top of our class. He just doesn’t really give a shit, so they haven’t ever been able to pull him into all the special project bullshit they pull all the other brainiacs into, myself included. I mean, I’m using Lipson as much as she’s using me, but, I’m over at the Healing Wing three evenings a week regardless. Anyway, El never really played into it, much to the despair of the faculty, and now…”

“Right, I get it,” Quentin said. “Fuck. I just - it feels so stupid. It would’ve been perfect, but the fucking serum…”

“Hey. Shit happens, Coldwater. Like I told you last night, he knew the choice he was making,” Margo said. She gave him an evaluating glance and put her hands on her hips. “Now - what about you? Are you finally going to put us all out of our misery and put on your big boy pants and ask him out?”

Quentin gaped, looking at Margo and then at Alice and then back at Margo. “Uh. You, um. You know?”

“Quentin. The fucking Giant Squid knows.”

Oh, shit. 

“But, then. Um. If everyone knows, if _he_ knows, how come every time I kind of tried to ask him he changed the subject? Or, um. Started talking about the all-time most intricate cocktails in magical history?”

“He’s scared, Q,” Alice replied, an odd smile twisting her mouth. “He’s always had a crush on you, you know that, right? Just as much as you’ve had on him.”

A few arguments Quentin and Alice had had back during their short-lived and disastrous romance suddenly re-shuffled themselves in his brain. Oh, _Circe_. He really had been a shit boyfriend. 

“But what’s the problem, then, if he’s always had a crush on me?” Quentin asked, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Does he think I don’t mean it or something?”

“Oh, baby Q. He’s scared you won’t mean it, and he’s scared that you will,” Margo replied, voice warm.

Quentin sat down on one of the stuffed chairs, overwhelmed. He stared at the glowing potion, bubbling away, and tried to make sense of the last few weeks, of the way Eliot had touched him more than ever before - had it been more than ever before? Quentin had become so used to that hand on his neck, on his back, a long arm around his shoulders - but pulled back whenever Quentin tried to get him properly alone to talk. The way he’d looked at Quentin, warm and sad at once, and maybe longing? The way he’d asked those weird questions about Alice and Quentin hadn’t ever gotten to ask him what they were about. Maybe they’d both been reaching for the same thing, but had been too scared to take the final step.

He finally looked up from the hypnotic colors of the potion. “Okay, so. What do I do?”

“Go get him, baby,” Margo replied.

* * *

Going and getting him was easier said and done, as Quentin soon found out. The entire castle was in upheaval because the Yule Ball was that night - they had in fact timed the heist for the night before so everyone would be a little too busy planning to pay them much mind - and Quentin couldn’t find Eliot in any of his usual haunts. He wasn’t at the movable cottage, obviously, but the bathroom in the third floor with the leaky faucet but perfect lighting to fix anyone’s hair was a bust, as was the corner of the library close to the window where one could sneak a smoke if one wasn’t suicidal and entirely too un-scared of Madame Schiff, and the spot in front of the lake that had the best views of the Giant Squid.

Defeated, Quentin made his way to the Hufflepuff common room, which was utterly empty except for Penny, who seemed to be meditating on one of the squishy ottomans. 

“He’s not here,” Penny said immediately after Quentin approached, eyes closed.

“Yeah, I _know_ he’s not here - he’s not fucking anywhere!” Quentin replied, making his way to slouch defeatedly on his armchair in front of the fireplace. “Are we sure he only got detention and hasn’t actually been remanded to Azkaban? He seems to have vanished!”

Penny breathed out an irritated sigh, and opened his eyes. “Quentin, Azkaban doesn’t even exist anymore. And what are you talking about, vanished? He’s not here, but you just missed him by like five minutes.”

Quentin sat up so quickly he overbalanced and fell off the armchair. “Wait - what? What do you mean he was here? Where did he go? Did he tell you anything?” he asked, scrambling upright. 

Penny stared at him for a moment, brow furrowed. “Wait - are you being extra Coldwater right now because you’re finally telling Eliot you have a ridiculous crush on him?” He cocked his head, and, as always, managed to pluck the thoughts right of Quentin’s head, because fuck his life. “You are! Fucking _finally_.”

“Well, yeah, except I can’t find him anywhere to tell him about my ridiculous crush,” Quentin replied, rolling his eyes. “So less with the finallys and more with the help, please. Did he happen to tell you where he was going?”

“Yeah. He said Sunderland had him running around everywhere today as her errand boy, pretty much, because of the Ball. She’s taking advantage of his wand arm to put up all the decorations and shit. He told me he’d barely had time to eat - I really don’t think you’ll be able to catch up to him and get him alone to talk right now,” Penny said, shrugging. 

Quentin ran both hands through his hair, letting out a frustrated breath. This was just his fucking luck, of course. “Maybe this is just a sign, you know? Maybe I should just. Not.”

Penny immediately stood up, with far more grace than Quentin, and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Coldwater. Quentin. Don’t do this. Don’t talk yourself out of something you want, of something you both want, just because you’re scared,” Penny said, serious and earnest in that way that he got when he was actually being helpful, which wasn’t too often in Quentin’s direction, but more often than it used to be. “Just. Calm the fuck down, make a plan, and please, for all our sakes: tell Eliot that you really want to suck his dick, for as long as you both shall live, okay?”

Quentin snorted out a laugh, but nodded after a moment. Penny was right. Quentin owed Eliot - he owed himself - to not get freaked out. “Okay. Okay. But, um - what plan should I make? Should I just wait until his detention period is over? And things are, like, more relaxed?”

“What? No! Of course not! He’s going to be in detention until he leaves school,” Penny said, shaking his head. “No - you won’t be able to catch him right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch him later tonight. He told me that Mayakovsky, the vengeful Russian asshole, was making him regrout the floor in the Potions dungeon during the Yule Ball. So, y’know. Just, show up. Maybe take a shower first, though - you look a little sweaty.”

“Shut up, no I don’t,” Quentin said, even though he probably really did. “But, yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. Thank you, Penny.”

“Thank me by not bitching out, okay? Now go away, I’m trying to meditate.”

Quentin nodded, shooting Penny a small smile, and headed to his room. Before he showered, he needed to plan what he was wearing.

* * *

Later that night, Quentin quietly made his way to Mayakovsky’s dungeon, dodging the perfumed and glittering masses making their way to the Great Hall to the Ball. He’d wound up wearing his trusty black jeans and his favorite black sweater - one of Eliot’s, actually, which he’d borrowed last year when he’d been too cold in his room and never returned. Quentin had thought for a moment of maybe wearing dress robes, trying to look more formal, but. Well, robes and Quentin hadn’t been a good combination for the six whole years he’d been wearing them, and he didn’t want to add one more thing to stress about into the mix.

As he approached the darkened corridor that led to the dungeon, he took a deep breath. “It’s just Eliot,” he reminded himself. Eliot, who’d become his touchstone and his accomplice and the first person at Hogwarts who had seen his weird, awkward, bitchy self and said “yes, I’ll keep him.” Just Eliot.

He walked into the classroom and paused for a moment, looking at Eliot who was kneeling on the floor, viciously attacking the edges between the stones with a silver blade, and singing along absently to a song playing badly through the charmed iPod he refused to relinquish. His hair was askew, and his shirt was wrinkled to what Quentin knew he considered unacceptable levels, and, fuck. Quentin really loved him.

“Eliot,” he whispered, clearing his throat, and stepping further inside.

Eliot fumbled with the blade in his hand and turned around swiftly, mouth dropping open at the sight of Quentin. “Q? What - what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the Ball?”

Quentin had so many words, so many things he wanted and needed to tell Eliot, but it ultimately all came down to one thing. He knelt in front of Eliot, took his raspy hands in his own, and said, “You’re the only reason I would’ve gone.”

Quentin felt Eliot’s hands tremble slightly in his, and he saw his hazel eyes glimmer slightly as Eliot processed his words. 

“Me? But. But I thought that. Well, maybe you were going with someone else, or… maybe you just wanted to go?”

“You thought wrong, El,” Quentin replied, smiling slightly. “Why would I want to be anywhere you aren’t?”

“Q…” Eliot breathed out. “Don’t - don’t say that if you don’t mean it. Don’t.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything more,” Quentin said, shrugging slightly, feeling his heart racing with the truth of his words. “And now, um. I’m gonna kiss you, if you don’t mind.”

Eliot’s mouth was slightly open again, in surprise, in shock, and as Quentin leaned in and kissed him, his own hand shaking now as he reached out to hold the side of Eliot’s face, he felt like he was bursting out of his own skin. Eliot’s lips were slightly chapped, and warm, and _perfect_ , and Quentin never wanted to do anything that wasn’t kissing him ever again. He felt Eliot’s arms come around him, one hand settling at the small of his back and another behind his neck, like they belonged there - maybe they did, maybe they always had - and they kept kissing, Quentin not giving an inch, wanting to erase anybody who had ever kissed Eliot who wasn’t him, wanting to rewrite all the near misses and almosts with finally. 

They split apart after a moment, both of them breathing deeply, and Quentin leaned back slightly to catch Eliot’s eyes. 

“Jeez, Coldwater. You can _kiss_ ,” Eliot said quietly.

“Was that. Was that okay?”

Eliot smiled, then, a luminous, overwhelming smile that warmed Quentin up from the inside, a smile that was his only. “Q. That was perfect,” he said. He paused, cocked his head. “Well, I mean. There’s always room for improvement, of course. And practice.”

Quentin huffed out a small laugh. “Right. Um, would you be amenable to helping me practice, then?”

“Of course,” Eliot replied, putting on a serious, gallant air. “It might, however, take a very long time.”

Quentin glanced down, took Eliot’s hands back in his, running a finger softly across the callouses, pausing on the silver ring Eliot always wore. He’d known him for years, but he still didn’t know how he’d gotten that ring, why it was important. He wanted to know that - he wanted to know everything. He looked up, then, met Eliot’s eyes.

“We can take forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Silhouettes by Of Monsters and Men. About the butterfly, it does exist! (although not to make Margo’s awesome potion, unfortunately) and you can read more about it [here](https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/08/behold-the-biggest-rarest-butterfly-in-the-world/). About wizards in space, if you haven’t read the absolutely PERFECT fic [you will see what it is to be overcome](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16082675) by **magneticwave** , you need to run and do that (Star Trek canon divergence, Kirk is a wizard).


End file.
